


minecraft dreams

by mundanemetro



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Minecraft, Slow Burn, bully!haechan, mark is quirky, twitch streamer!mark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-05-15 01:03:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19284913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mundanemetro/pseuds/mundanemetro
Summary: Mark Lee, the nerd who also lives a double life as one of the top Twitch streamers, gasps for air as he comes to a dead end after sprinting for his dear life. He texts his minecraft girlfriend for the last time as he's being cornered by his life long bully, Lee Donghyuck. As he braces himself and accepts his fated death, the unexpected happens.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically based off that tweet which was like "when you get cornered by the school bully so you send one last text to your minecraft gf but his phone vibrates" bc it radiated mh energy so here y'all go. This is honestly a joke but it might get more serious in the next upcoming chapters so uh enjoy

Mark Lee wasn’t like all the other 16 year old teenage boys in his school. You see, he’s different. He’s lanky, wears glasses and competes in chess tournaments. He actually listens to the bands on his t-shirts unlike the uncultured swines in his grade that flaunt their Nirvana tees having only listened to Smells Like Teen Spirit once. He’s the definition of quirky.

But what makes him such a special snowflake as compared to other 10th graders was that he was a Minecraft Twitch streamer. That’s right, Mark Lee was a Twitch streamer. Not just any Twitch streamer, oh no, he was the famous ‘ _MarkTheMinecart_ ’ who got 500k real-time viewers per live. No one else knew about his account except for his only friend and neighbour Jeno who sometimes joined his streams every now and then. Mark usually wore a ski mask to keep his identity anonymous, hence why no one else at his school knows about this double life of his.

He started out with playing on different servers with his fellow gamers. His viewer count was quite small back then. Suddenly on one midsummer day, he met this user _FullSuns_ on some Dysteria server. Despite her having the default Alex skin, she definitely wasn’t a noob. In fact she was actually better than Mark at the whole game. With each stream Mark did with _FullSuns_ , his viewer count increased greatly - going from 1000 views to 50000 - he kept on getting more and more gamer clout.

After ending his stream, it was only him and _FullSuns_ left in the server so he decided to message her, asking her if she’d like to join more of his gameplays. She didn’t hesitate to reply with an enthusiastic “Heck yeah!” and soon _FullSuns_ became an official member of Mark’s gamer gang.

As time went on, Mark’s fanbase grew bigger, most of them coming from watching his streams with FullSuns. A dating rumour about users _MarkTheMinecart_ and _FullSuns_ broke out and before Mark even had the chance to speak up about the said speculation, the latter had already confirmed that they were dating. 

At first Mark was flabbergasted at her bold response, like sure he was deeply impressed by her skills and maybe his heart did a little thing each time she successfully defeated a mob and perhaps her witty retorts instantly brightened up his already dampened day but he still thought it was a bit too early to tell her that. Having only been three months since he first met her, he was still in the ‘contemplating feelings’ stage.

Not too long after the confirmation of the rumour, Mark received a message from _FullSuns_. She apologised for putting out an answer without asking him first and then went on with how sorry she was. She then said that it wasn’t a mistake but it was actually part of her plan. She explained that if Mark started doing a roleplay series with his Minecraft girlfriend, his viewer count would skyrocket through the roof and it would make them both one of the most popular Twitch streamers alive.

Mark thought ‘to hell with it’ and decided to go along with her plan. After exchanging numbers (“Don’t flatter yourself, this is so that we can keep in contact with each other and plan out our series.” “Yeah sure I totally believe you.” “Ugh just don’t send me any cursed images you weirdo.”) and sorting out scripts, the two were ready to begin their first couple-themed Minecraft stream. As predicted, it gained a crap ton of views and shortly after a few more roleplays they became the hottest streamers on the whole Twitch platform.

Life was absolutely _splendid_ for Mark Lee - he was one of the top Minecraft streamers on Twitch, he had a girlfriend who was hot as frick (he didn’t see her face yet but she still gives hot-girl-vibes) and he finally had enough money to buy a decent yet overpriced sandwich from the school canteen that got several warnings from the Department of Health. Nothing could dampen his mood, absolutely nothing at all.

He was proven wrong, however, as Lucifer’s very own child made his daily appearance into Mark’s pathetic life. The boy snorted at his presence before turning towards Mark and approaching him in his battered Golf le Fleur Chuck Taylors.

‘ _The sole is literally hanging off the damned shoe how the heck is it still there?_ ,’ Mark thought and unfortunately this was a question that will forever remain unanswered. Even the scientists still can’t get their heads around this.

The boy wasn’t alone though as he had his little gang trailing behind him, all in similar fashion - ripped jeans, Slipknot tees and black leather jackets that’s either stained with spray paint, blood or the blueberry soy yogurt from their acai bowls (yes they were vegan but don’t let that distract you from the fact that they were still a bunch of j e r k s).

“Watchya got in there, nerd?” the devil’s child faked a gasp as he snatched Mark’s dear lunch money out of his hand. “Twenty dollars, huh? What an upgrade from fifty cents, wow we’re eating good tonight boys!”

“Can we _please_ just get some mcfriggin chicken nuggets? I’m tired of being vegan, it’s already been two whole years,” the freakishly tall kid in the back, Jisung, whined. He whined again when the purple-haired boy, Chenle, smacked him square on the face for “speaking such blasphemy”. Before the brunette could even unleash a yo mama insult, another boy from the group pinched both of their ears and told them to stop acting like kids fighting over which parent they want to be in custody of. Whatever that meant, it surely shut them up. 

“Hey Donghyuck, can we-”

“No, Jisung, you’re staying vegan. Remember, meat is murder,” he said as he turned to face towards Mark and waved the bill that he just snatched off him right in front of his eyes. “Thanks for the cash, Canada, really appreciate- what the fuck?”

Mark tore the money away from his grip and sprinted down the hallway. He was not going to have his money taken away again, it had gone on for too long (1089 days to be exact, he had one of those countdown apps). He didn’t want to be trampled over like a doormat by a kid who’s a whole year younger than him anymore, he’s had enough. It was finally time he fought back.

You may be wondering, why on earth did this boy, Lee Donghyuck, constantly bully poor old innocent chap, Mark Lee? Honestly, no one really knows his reasons for doing so. Ever since tiny ten year old Mark moved from Vancouver into Donghyuck’s estate, he immediately became the latter’s target for both physical and verbal bullying. It was like he became his designated beat-up buddy, Mark being the one getting beat up of course.

Dirty glares soon developed into daily lunch money stealing and punching sessions. Did Mark come out to his teachers about this? Of course he did, but did it work? Unfortunately not as every single staff member in the entire school just didn’t care. They had other things to worry about which were of more importance than some scrawny kid’s complaints about another fellow student. The teachers hardly would have thought that a child as small and harmless as Donghyuck would have been able to even land a single punch on somebody; it was just unbelievable. 

From elementary all the way through high school, Donghyuck had people cowering under his signature stare everywhere he went. As time passed, more and more became scared of him. Be it a kindergartener or a senior, age wasn’t something that he paid any mind to. He feared nothing, no threats or consequences or angry middle aged women could make Donghyuck hesitate or bring his actions to a halt.

If you didn’t want to get beat up, you just had to do whatever he tells you to do. God forbid you tell anyone in authority about it either, which was Mark’s first of many mistakes, because if you do he’ll make your life a living hell. Everyone knew that he wasn’t the kid who you wanted to mess with, Mark only being in the country for three weeks never had this valuable piece of information brought to his attention and he unfortunately learnt things the hard way. He just had to suck it up and endure it all, there was absolutely no way of getting out of this, ever.

After what seemed like a whole eternity of bolting down long school corridors (read: twelve minutes of Mark’s mediocre running yet great hiding skills), he eventually came to a dead end. He roughly had about two minutes and thirty five seconds left until he became dead meat. He had a total of three escape options that he could take:

a.) Cram himself into a spare locker and hope to God the locker doesn’t get knocked over by Donghyuck kicking it in attempts of getting it to open (it’s happened before to some freshman, he refused to give him back the chemistry homework that Donghyuck paid him to do and he ended up with a dislocated arm with a tonne of bruises running down on one side. Kid was practically asking for it though, acting all tough before breaking down at his feet.) 

b.) Run back out and use his very limited fighting skills that he obtained from that one self defense class his mother made him take in fifth grade to protect himself from Donghyuck. 

c.) Curl up into a ball in the corner and cry while accepting his fated death.

As soon as he reviewed over the very few options he had, the shadow of the person he dreaded the most came over him. He felt his body internally shrivel up under his stern glare even though he was slightly taller than him. With every step Donghyuck took, Mark staggered back until the wall came up behind him. Looks like he’s taking option c now. So this was it, this was the day of his inevitable death.

As he pushed himself further into the corner, he slipped his hand into his back pocket and took out his battered Samsung Galaxy J3 (again, he’s different). He scrolled through his contacts with tears rapidly streaming down his face. He pressed onto the one named _FullSuns_ and typed out his last message before he was beaten like a bunch of eggs. He choked back a sob as he hit send and buried his head into his knees, shoulders shaking with each breath he shakily took in. 

Not too long into his breakdown a buzz came from Donghyuck’s back pocket. Mark looked up and furrowed his brows in confusion. He took out his phone again and sent another message to FullSuns. It buzzed again. No, this can’t be. Surely this could be just a pure coincidence. Like for all he knew it could be just Renjun texting him that he just got coupons for free smoothie bowls at some overhyped hipster café down the road. The possibility of them both being the same person was far from likely. To clear up his thoughts he then proceeded to calling her. 

They both paused and stared at each other with blank expressions as some intense pop punk song suddenly blasted from where Donghyuck stood. He reached into his back pocket, slowly taking his phone out, accepted the call and held it up against his ear. Without any signs of any kind of emotion evident on his face, he answered with a monotone “Hello?”.

They couldn’t believe their ears when they heard what came out the other end of the line. The two stood there frozen as they both remained utterly silent. Eventually Donghyuck hung up and hunched up his shoulders before sprinting away and escaping whatever predicament they were just in right there. He left just as Mark was about to say something to him. Now he was left perplexed. __FullSuns, his long term Minecraft girlfriend whom he admired and shared his platform on Twitch with, was also the most feared bully in his entire area, _Donghyuck_? The whole situation was uncanny.

Mark took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes while he lay sprawled on the coldness of the tiled floor that was wet with his tears from several moments before. Out of all the questions that were rushing through his head, all he could think was ‘What kind of fuckery is this?’


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys so just to clear this up: mark and 00line are all in 10th grade whilst jisung and chenle are freshmen. jaemin hasn't appeared yet but he will make an appearance in future chapters so look forward to that. also i want to thank you guys for reading this shitpiece damn y'all are mad crazy for liking this but i'm glad i was able to make some of y'all laugh. ok enough w this, sorry for the late update!!

He might’ve developed a fear of footsteps along the way as his body immediately shot up at the sound of someone approaching.

“Dude chill it’s just me,” Jeno said as he crouched down to Mark’s eye level, carefully inspecting his face as he did so. Mark sighed in relief at the sight of his best and probably his only friend. 

Whenever Mark was all battered and bruised or feeling down in the dumps, Jeno was always there to patch him up. Sure he wasn’t always there to stand up for him and fight back against Donghyuck but you can’t blame him - it wasn’t that he was terrified of him but rather he didn’t want to get into any sort of trouble since he was class captain and was also busy student council duties. Mark didn’t expect him to either but the boy still made an effort to cheer him up.

Ever since Mark moved in from Canada, Jeno was the only person that stuck by him the whole time. He never called him lame or weird and never treated him like an outsider. He never made fun of his music taste or how he participated in competitive chess tournaments, he actually made Mark feel comfortable to be himself, that he didn’t have to force anything upon himself to be liked. He felt like he could trust Jeno, which was why he was the only person that he talked about his Twitch channel to.

Despite all their differences, the two were inseparable. Their bond was often questioned by others, most of them wondering why someone as cool and chic as Jeno would be hanging out with the nation’s loser, Mark Lee? Honestly, there really isn’t a reason to explain their friendship, they just clicked from their first encounter with each other - which was when he was crumbling to his knees after Donghyuck snapped his plastic diamond sword in half in fifth grade and Jeno came rushing in with a roll of tape (quite eventful, I know).

Back to tenth grade Mark, he still felt his eyes trembling as Jeno tried to balance a sandwich carton of top of his head, failing with each attempt.

“Which one did you get?” Mark asked as he picked up the fallen carton and took its contents out of it.

“Tuna sweetcorn,” Jeno replied which made Mark grimace.

“Dude you know that’s like, the grossest kind of sandwich ever.”

“The chicken ones had maggots in them. Bone app the teeth.”

Mark hesitantly bit into his sandwich as Jeno attacked him with questions about what happened earlier. After several minutes of explaining the situation to him, the latter was left in shock.

“So you’re telling me...that your minecraft girlfriend…is Donghyuck? Are you sure you weren’t tripping?”

Mark shook his head in response, causing Jeno’s mouth to drop even lower as a result. If you were to hold a picture of a fish with its mouth agape next to him, they’d be completely identical to each other.

“Glug glug,” Mark imitated before pulling himself up to his feet as he headed towards his next class, dragging Jeno along with him.

The rest of the day went on as usual. Nothing too out of the ordinary happened, except for the fire alarm being pulled again for the second time that day (most likely the act of some freshman juuler kid). At this point no event could ever top the uncanniness of whatever one Mark was just in.

For someone who was an expert at controlling his thoughts, focusing in class suddenly became a challenge for him. He was so preoccupied that he stared out the window for three minutes, but that wasn’t the worst part of it - he did that twice in the same class. Oh dear Lord, Mark Lee was turning into a dunce! Mark was so ashamed and repulsed by his reckless behaviour that he rewrote his notes from that class three times as soon as he went home.

He kicked off his shoes and immediately ran up the stairs to his bedroom, ignoring his mum calling him to dinner on his way there (a little rude but let him off, he’s going through puberty). He sat himself down at his desk, pen in one hand as he leaned his forehead against the palm of the other. He switched on his desk lamp, its light almost blinding him in the process, and began writing.

When he completed all his homework as well as his self punishment, he flopped onto his bed, face dug deep into his pillow while his limbs lay spread out. He stayed like that for a while, wallowing in his greater-than-usual self pity.

He turned his head while he still laid on his stomach; it was a bad habit and was probably the main cause of his atrocious posture but he really couldn’t care less anymore. His spine was the least of his concerns, despite its importance to the structure of the human body. 

While drifting his gaze from his wall that was fully covered in a countless number of band and minecraft posters, he suddenly remembered that he had a live stream planned in a few hours. It wasn’t just any regular stream, oh no, it was the special weekly couple stream where he and FullSuns had a script to act out. 

Mark groaned agonisingly into his hands. This was going to be one if not the most awkward situation he’s ever been in. He’d just found out that his girlfriend was actually a dude and if that didn’t hurt his hetero self enough he had given more than half of the revenue he earned from his streams to Donghyuck. He made a silent prayer to God while clutching onto his rosary beads. 

‘Dear Lord, give me strength’ he pleaded.

With his equipment all set up, he made a few final adjustments to his camera and slipped on his ski mask and headset before starting his stream.

 

 **marktheminecart:** What’s mining markcarts? Welcome back to another ‘lava love live’ with my dear girlfriend, fullsuns!

 **fullsuns:** Hey sunflowers! Great to see you guys again!

 **marktheminecart:** Including me?

 **fullsuns:** No because you gave your fans a stupid ass name.

Mark sighed in relief. Everything was going smoothly despite the event that took place just a couple hours ago. It was like it never happened. All he needed to do now was to maintain his composure for a few more hours. It’ll all go well, surely.

 **marktheminecart:** Hey watch it, they’re all gonna come at you- oh nevermind they agree with you too, I stand corrected.

 **fullsuns:** Anyways, let’s get on to the stream. So last week we asked you guys to send in any requests you had for our next ‘lava love live’-

 **marktheminecart:** -and the most frequently requested one was…

Okay maybe keeping calm was harder than he thought it would be. Mark looked down at the script in his hands to see their theme printed in a size 96 rainbow coloured comic sans font (note to Mark, never let FullSuns, or Donghyuck rather, type out their scripts and choose the fonts - he’s literally the reason why Mark’s ink cartridges are all used up). He spluttered when he read it. 

**fullsuns:** Mark? You there?

 **marktheminecart:** Huh? Oh right uh where was I?

 **fullsuns:** Tonight’s request? For the stream?

 **marktheminecart:** Right, the most requested one was..

There were sirens going off in Mark’s brain. It was like there was a tiny office controlling Mark’s thoughts in there and the tiny office people were running around frantically, trying to come up with a way to get him out of his panicked state but miserably failing in doing so and now there were red lights flashing everywhere. There’s no way he can do this.

He cleared his throat before facing towards one of his monitors.

 **marktheminecart:** Uhm markcarts, something came up so I’m gonna have to cut this stream short, sorry. 

He disconnected from the server before the other got a chance to respond. He turned off his mic and camera and took off his ski mask. God, how was he going to go on like this? He sat there wondering how Donghyuck was able to stay in character through all of this. He even wrote the scripts, how was he not choking up at how they had to act out a high school confession scene?

Eventually Mark fell asleep at his desk, the light of his two monitors hitting off the side of his face as he slept. He woke up groggily to the deafening sound of his alarm piercing his ears. He rubbed his eyes before smacking his hand down onto the snooze button on his phone.

After finishing up with his daily morning routine (brush teeth, sit down in shower, eat raisin bran then skidaddle) he grabbed his glasses on his way out as he twisted the knob of his front door and pulling it open, certainly not expecting the presence of the boy who stood there.

“Dude, you gotta check this out,” Jeno said as he shoved his phone into Mark’s _precious_ face. “You’re like, the talk of the town right now.”

“More like the talk of Twitter,” Mark grumbled while scrolling through the thread that was titled ‘Why MTM’s Stream Ended Abruptly’ along with a sickening amount of gasp face emojis. It was no surprise to Mark that his fans were catching on to his suspicious behaviour from last night, after all he had over 300,000 viewers watching that stream (not trying to flex or anything).

The thread talked about possible reasons why Mark suddenly cut the stream short such as how he could’ve had a rough day at school or probably had an argument with FullSuns or was just simply going through puberty. Heck, even the original poster of the thread was a certified psychologist and backed up their statement with clips from the last ‘lava love live’. 

‘Have they ever considered that maybe my internet was acting up or..’ Mark thought to himself as he continued scrolling through the replies underneath, most of them agreeing with the psychologist. You can’t really blame them though; everyone tends to over-analyse everything nowadays and now things seem deeper than they actually are. This is society for ya, son.

Anyways, as Mark skimmed through the rest of the replies, his eyes suddenly stopped at the one that had a link to his school’s discussion forum attached to it. He paused for a moment, hovering his thumb over the link before pressing it. His eyes widened when he saw what came up.

There was a trending post that claimed that the anonymous Minecraft Twitch streamer who was loved by many was none other than the school nerd, Mark Lee. It included two audio recordings, one from his latest stream and the other from his speech after winning last year’s chess final, as evidence. The commenters under the post were divided - some agreeing whilst others thought it was nonsense. Anyone could’ve had the same voice as him, but apparently that was enough to spark a discussion within the whole school.

“Hey whatcha got ther-,” Jeno jaw dropped mid-sentence as he looked over Mark’s shoulder and saw what the latter was reading. He snatched his phone out of the boy’s hands, jaw dropping even lower the more he read on. “Oh you are DOOMED doomed.”

That’s exactly what Mark Lee was. Absolutely doomed. He hadn’t even stepped foot out of his house yet and he was already exhausted from mind pacing back and forth repeatedly in both panic and stress. Not only was he going to have people look at him wherever he went but now they were going to talk about him too, which is crazy since he’s never been talked about unless it was someone commenting on his weirdly thick ass frames that sat on his nose 24/7.

“That’s not the worst part bud.”

He was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts (which he most likely said aloud) when Jeno nudged his arm with his phone, pointing at the username in the top left corner of the post. Suddenly Mark felt his teeth clenching and his face forming into a frown as he realised who it was. That’s right, the poster was the infamous Lee Donghyuck. God, even his blood was boiling at the thought of him. 

He immediately slammed his door shut and dragged Jeno behind him as they headed their way over to school.

“Dude what are you doing?”

“I’m rage walking, can’t you see?” Mark sighed exasperatedly, continuing to do something that was like a cross between a stomp and a lunge.

“Whatever, you might wanna stop doing that now.”

Mark immediately straightened up when he saw two girls from the year below him eyeing him weirdly in front of the school gate. He coughed before nodding towards their direction and speed walking past them with Jeno following suit.

Since Donghyuck always came to school last minute, Mark couldn’t talk to him before classes started. Eventually lunch came around the corner which meant he was finally able to see Donghyuck; not that he was looking forward to it _oh no not at all_ because if there was anything he was looking forward to, it was confronting the shit out of him haha (keep telling yourself that Mark).

As he sat in his usual place, the corner right beside waste bins, the devil himself finally made his appearance, obviously accompanied by his jerk ass friends. When they sat down and started talking about whatever kid they beat up yesterday, Mark stood up from his sad sandwich corner and stormed towards them. He grabbed Donghyuck’s shoulder which obviously made him curse out loud and diverted the attention of everyone in the canteen towards them.

“What the fuck do you want?” he spat out as he tore Mark’s minuscule hand away from his shoulder.

“Just come with me.”

“And why the hell would I do that?” His gave Mark his signature stare, his eyes like daggers digging deeper and deeper into the boy’s soul as each second passed by. Surely the blade would be out the other side by now.

Mark didn’t know what came over him, but he somehow had the nerve to lean in closer to Donghyuck’s ear and say in a voice low enough for only the two of them to hear “If you don’t want anyone else to know, follow me.”

Donghyuck took one last glare at everyone before cussing under his breath whilst following Mark out of the canteen.

They soon stopped in some secluded part of the school, somewhere behind the abandoned bathrooms that was rumoured to be haunted by past teachers. Donghyuck pulled out a brown stick object from his jacket and put it up against his mouth. Mark quickly slapped it out of his lips and crushed it with his foot onto the ground.

“Fuck you that was my last chocolate stick-o.”

“Sorry I thought it was a cig.”

“Whatever just tell me what you wanted to say,” Donghyuck grumbled before looking off to the side to check if there was anyone there watching them. It was already damaging enough to be within a two metre radius of the nation’s loser.

“Why are you trying to leak my identity?”

Donghyuck looked up at the boy and raised his eyebrow at him.

“Leak your what now?”

“Oh stop playing dumb, I know you made that post on the forum last night.”

There was a short moment of silence between them before Donghyuck broke it with his sniggering. He held the back of his hand up to cover his sarcastic grin. Mark just stood there frozen, unable to tell if he was safe or in danger in the situation he was currently in. With someone as emotionless as Donghyuck, it was all a game of life or death. 

He shook his head whilst approaching Mark, taking a step closer and closer until the wall came up against the latter and there was only the space of a mere inch between them. Mark turned away as he felt Donghyuck’s breath fanning over his neck.

“You’ve seriously got some nerve back in there, Canada, although you need to check your facts first before you get all tough and go around falsely accusing innocent people.” He then pulled away before flicking Mark’s forehead with his index finger. “Meet me back here at lunch tomorrow if you still think I posted that. Be late and I’ll deck you.”

He walked away, leaving Mark in confusion once again. He leaned against the hardness of the wall, letting his weight drag him down, sliding until he reached the damp concrete ground. He buried his head into his knees and groaned for God knows how many times. He sat there thinking about the pros and cons of his situation.

The pros: Donghyuck may not be the one who was set on jeopardising Mark’s Twitch career

The cons: Someone else might be and he might be getting killed tomorrow

‘Splendid,’ Mark thought to himself. ‘Fricking splendid.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there’s a lot of dialogue in this also sorry for the late update!! smth pretty revolutionary happens here tho so enjoy that aha

The rest of the day wasn’t too bad for Mark but the next day wasn’t any better as the hushed whispers grew even louder to the point where he could clearly hear that they were having full on conversations about him. Jeno wasn’t there to accompany him that morning because he was at the dentist’s getting his braces taken off (which he literally wouldn’t stop bugging Mark about for the past month). 

He tried not to mind the comments and odd glances he got as he made his way down the corridor. As long as he found out who was behind the ‘MTM EXPOSED’ post and settled things with them, all of this sudden attention would no longer exist and he would go back to being the kid who was barely acknowledged by his peers. He assured himself that everything would be alright and that it couldn’t get any worse than this.

He then suddenly remembered that he had to meet up with Donghyuck at lunch that day. Before he could even prepare himself the bell had already rung, its annoyingly shrill noise bringing joy to everyone else except Mark. 

_‘Oh frick me,’_ he muttered under his breath while the rest of his class immediately shot up right out of their seats and hurried their way out the door.

He threw his head back and groaned inwardly before heaving himself up and heading over to the so called ‘cursed’ area of the school.

 

He glanced at his pink casio watch for the nth time and surprise surprise - big scary ‘I’ll deck you’ boy wasn’t there yet. He huffed as he leaned against the wall, picking at its already chipped paint, as he looked off to the side while waiting for Donghyuck.

What was a few minutes ended up being half an hour of him sitting on the ground whilst his patience began to run thin. With five minutes left until lunch came to an end, there was still no goddamn sign of him. Mark slung his bag over his shoulder and began to walk to his next class but before he could even do so, the boy who he’d been waiting for for the past forty minutes had finally shown up and stopped him in his tracks.

Mark tried to slip his way out but with each step he took he was immediately blocked by the other. After having predicted all of Mark’s next moves, Donghyuck cocked his head to the right and raised his eyebrow slightly, claiming his victory over Mark’s unsurprisingly poor attempts at escaping. 

The latter huffed before glancing up at Donghyuck. The boy had beads of sweat dripping down the side of his reddened face and he could hear his breathing was still quite irregular - seemed like he was in a rush to get there. He was probably with his jerk gang and simply forgot about their whole arrangement.

But why was he in such a hurry; knowing Donghyuck he would have just pulled Mark out of lunch the next day since he never was on time with anything, unless.. he might have, how do I put this, really cared about this meeting.. which probably meant-

Mark shook himself out of his thoughts. _‘That’s just crazy, he absolutely despises my guts’._ Before his brain could even go full 4channer mode on him and come up with any more bizarre theories, Donghyuck grabbed his wrist and led him out towards a wall that had some stone slabs sticking out from between its cracks; perfect for climbing. 

_‘I’m gonna skip amn’t I?’_ Mark paced up and down as the panic was starting to settle in. 

The younger breezily got on top of the wall in one swift movement as if it was a regular thing he did (unsurprisingly to the other).

He sat on the wall with his feet dangling off, waiting for the other to come up. Seeing that Mark was hesitating to join him, he bit back an impatient sigh and held out his hand towards him. No reaction. He lifted his hand up to his neck and grumbled.

“Look, we’re not gonna get into trouble if that’s what you’re worried about alright so quit being such a fucking pussy-”

“I’m actually a wolf.”

Donghyuck deadpanned at him. The amount of awkward tension in there was so thick that you could scoop it out with a butterknife and spread it onto your sesame seed wholegrain vegan friendly bread. After a moment of them frozen in their place (once again) Mark decided to break the silence.

“I’m only correcting you on my fursona.”

“Aw gross the fuck just- don’t talk and get your ass over here already,” Donghyuck grimaced before jumping off to the other side, Mark soon following suit.

After dusting himself off, Donghyuck walked over to his bicycle which was, conveniently, parked right beside the spot where they landed. Mark’s eyes wavered to the single seat that was clearly displayed on the same bicycle. That’s right folks, he was gonna have to go..

“Peg style. Stand on those things and hold on to my shoulders but pull any funny shit and I won’t hesitate to throw you off.” Donghyuck pulled out his phone from his back pocket began typing, most likely texting his friends his excuse for being absent. 

Alright, skipping class was bad enough but having to initiate physical contact with his lifelong bully for more than five minutes? The end was near fellas, _so near._

Sirens were going off again and he could feel his lungs tighten and oh no he was hyperventilating. This was a million times worse than when he did the wrong page for homework one night. Or when Donghyuck gave him a swirly in sixth grade. Or when he ripped the head off of his limited edition creeper figure. Or any other encounter he had with Donghyuck.

Mark made the sign of the cross and trudged towards the other. His hands floated in the air for a while before landing onto the boy’s shoulders then balanced himself as he got into position. Donghyuck placed his foot onto the pedal and began cycling. 

 

“Hey are you sure I’m not gonna get into trouble?” Mark asked halfway into their little journey. 

“Yeah I already got Renjun to forge your mum’s signature onto your absence note. Even got the loop at the end and all.”

“You what?”

“Perks of having to collect permission slips,” Donghyuck quipped as he raised his right arm to signal his next turn to the driver behind them. 

Oh right, not only was Renjun a vegan but he was also a student rep. Not to mention he was an activist for women’s rights, set up a campaign to bring gender neutral toilets to the school, attended weekly protests for climate change and even set up a fundraiser to fix the maggot infestation in the canteen (which wasn’t too successful because the tiny beasts from the depths of hell found their way back in there somehow) but he still looked through Mark’s files and beats up kids so he remained a dick. 

Wait a second, did Mark just have a seemingly normal conversation.. with his bully... and had no threats made against him… within that same conversation? What in God’s name was happening?

“Fuckface we’re here.”

 _‘Spoke too soon,’_ Mark thought as they finally came to a stop in front of said boy’s house.

Noticing that he was still holding on to his shoulders, Mark immediately let go as if he was going to get the damned plague and hopped off, almost tripping himself up in the process. Donghyuck then fished into his pocket (swear this kid is like some Mary Poppins lookin ass with his bottomless pockets), eventually finding his keys and unlocked the front door. 

To Mark’s relief there seemed to be no one in the gaff at the time they were there (meaning that he didn’t have to spew up some shitty fam talk with Donghyuck’s dad because god was he intimidating).

The house didn’t differ much from his own, given that they both lived in the same estate they had the same basic layout and design - nothing too extraordinary like those mtv cribs or anything. Trailing behind the younger, he could see the numerous family photos that were hung up by the stairs, each one showcasing a happy young chap throwing little peace signs. 

‘Huh he doesn’t look menacing for once,’ Mark thought. They must’ve been taken before his arrival. It was hard for him to imagine the boy look so positive when every time they made eye contact Mark felt like he was asking for a death wish. Just what was there about him that was so infuriating to the other? The second he breathed the boy had already targeted him. 

Soon they were already in his room. In the corner was his setup with probably the most expensive looking equipment Mark’s ever seen (and he can just tell that some of his lunch money went there).

Donghyuck switched his computer on and logged into his account on the school forum.

“Hey Detective Conan, go mad,” he said as he stood up from his chair, handing it over to Mark. 

After spending a couple minutes looking through his profile, history and drafts, there was no sign of the thread anywhere. Also he hadn’t logged in since the day all new incoming students got their account details the heck- 

He continued to dig deeper and look through all his recent files. There was no footage of him there, only scripts for their future streams. He then moved on to the trash only to find nothing but their old scripts from their past streams. 

Eventually Mark gave up trying to look for his stupid evidence. If Donghyuck didn’t post that thread, who did? For all he knew a hacker might’ve made an exact copy of his account and post it as Lee Donghyuck. 

But why would they hack into a school forum, out of all places, like that was too bizarre. What was there that was worth hacking into? And if Donghyuck was telling the truth (which he was), Mark had just wrongfully accused him of leaking his identity _aw shit shit shit shit-_

“Can’t find it huh? Where’s the tough know it all, overconfident loser from yesterday, kinda miss him to be honest,” his voice dripped with sarcasm whilst he dug his finger deeper into the other’s chest with each and every word. 

Mark muttered a response which only led to him being aggressively grabbed by the collar. They were eye to eye with each other now and the only thing stopping him from collapsing in fear was Donghyuck’s hold on him. 

“The fuck you say to me?”

“I said I don’t have a fucking clue,” he spat out. Woah there, did Mark just drop the f bomb? He’s always replaced them with more child friendly words, this was a first. What a lad. 

The younger turned away to stifle his laugh, raising the back of his hand to cover the slight smirk that was forming at the corners of his lips. But it wasn’t his usual smirk of mockery, this was new. The look in his eyes were somehow different now; a rather lighter one than the one he had just a moment ago. 

“Wh- wait I don’t get it why do you look like that?” Mark was more confused than ever. He probably took one too many vitamin gummies. Yeah probably. 

Donghyuck released his grip on the other, increasing the distance between them as he stepped back to sit on the edge of his bed. 

“You know you’re real cute when you swear.”

Mark’s eyes widened and felt his face heat up at that. That was the first time anyone’s ever called him, apart from his mum. Even Jeno never said anything like that, so hearing this come from Donghyuck, out of all people, was proper wack. He should really watch his gummy intake.

A ping then echoed in the room, snapping Mark out of his thoughts, as Donghyuck took out his phone and swiped across the screen to reveal the message. He groaned while burying his face into the palms of his hands, confusing Mark with his sudden act of annoyance. He lifted his head up and let out a pained sigh before speaking again. 

“God I hate to be asking this from anyone, especially you, but I need your help.”

“Fuck no.” After all the years of pain and fear that kid gave him, there was no way Mark was going to help him. Ever. No matter what situation he was in, he’d rather have all his minecraft figures sold on ebay than give the boy who made his life nothing but misery a hand. It was finally time Mark spoke up for himself. He wasn’t going to be that pushover everyone called him before. 

“I know I said you’re cute when you swear but now’s not the time-”

“What? No, I- this is your problem to deal with, not mine,” Mark huffed out before he stood up and stormed out of the room. So what if he needed help, it was none of Mark’s concern anyway. Let him sort out his own shit. He’s had enough of being a pushover and doing what anybody asks him to do. 

“They’ll expose both of our identities by the end of next week if we don’t do anything,” Donghyuck called out in between breaths as he ran after him. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my mates to find out about this.”

That got Mark thinking; if people heard about MarktheMincart’s true identity, he’d lose all his fans and subscribers which meant his streams would get less viewers and less viewers mean less gamer clout and less gamer clout means less stacks - his Twitch streamer career was at risk. It was one of the very few things that brought him happiness and to have it fail after years of dedication and work he put into it, it’d all be a waste. In order to maintain the success of his streamer life, he had to remain anonymous. To find out that your favourite Twitch streamer was the nation’s loser, what a disappointment that would be. He couldn’t let that happen. 

He turned around to face Donghyuck. For such an inexpressive person, he could finally tell what the other was feeling. It was almost as if he was.. pleading? Mark may have resented him but he wasn’t a heartless jerk. Maybe it was time he grew some balls and faced his fears. In fact, he could make something beneficial out of this. 

“Fine I’ll help you but only if there’s no more daily beat up sessions, insults or lunch money stealing.”

“I can do two out of those three and deal,” Donghyuck immediately responded as he shoved Mark out the door, shutting it at his face before the latter had a chance to argue with him. 

Mark went home that day feeling more disappointed in himself than he’d ever been. He facepalmed at how he couldn’t even say no despite the sudden confidence he just had in there. “God Mark, you’re such a pushover,” he sighed at himself as he prepared his webcam for his solo stream. 

 

The Saturday breeze filled his room as he opened one of the windows to make sure he didn’t have a stroke on such a nice, oddly warm day (amen global warming, amen). He had no streams scheduled today and he’d already finished his weekend homework which meant he had a whole twenty four hours of pure relaxation. Ah yes what a wonderful day it was, that was until the dawning realisation of having to work with Donghyuck for the next nine days came upon him. 

His head thudded loudly against the glass, probably hard enough to crack his abnormally huge skull open. He let out a gutted groan as he felt the pain spread across the top of his head. Eventually he looked up to see whatever the heck was going on outside of his mancave.

His eyes remained fixated on the moving orange blob approaching his driveway. Mark scrambled to get his glasses and didn’t even bother putting them on the right way. Oh Donghyuck dyed his hair again. Ha he’s a ginger. Wait- Donghyuck? Walking to his doorstep? Oh shoot-

Hearing the knock on the door and his mum’s voice call him down, he knew that his nightmare had now become reality, and he didn’t get to prepare himself for it yet. He was starting to think that God somewhat hated him but that was okay, he was thinking of becoming an atheist anyway - he’d already lost faith in him since the day he got rejected by his eighth grade crush (frick you Bethany) but still prayed out of habit. 

As he opened the door he saw Donghyuck’s polite smile falter and immediately drop to a frown. There was no trace of the Donghyuck from yesterday, the slightly affectionate and oddly nice Donghyuck that called him cute the previous day. He was back as his bully, and probably that’s the way it was going to stay. The deal would’ve been already forgotten as he’d predicted it would be. Mark braced himself when Donghyuck stepped in. 

“Nice outfit nerd,” he said while he moved past Mark and patted his back. No punches or hard elbowing, just a simple friendly pat. No pain felt whatsoever. 

_‘Well there’s the end to that,’_ Mark thought, silently rejoicing in his mind when he knew that he wasn’t going to die from a blow to the stomach in the musty school bathrooms anymore. 

After processing Donghyuck’s last sentence, he looked down at the moose printed bottoms he had on. He pursed his lips into a fine line as he muttered a quick “one second” to the other before rushing upstairs to his room to change into a more decent looking attire. 

Coming back down in black sweats and a tshirt from last year’s church festival, he saw that his mum was already having a full on chat with Donghyuck. She didn’t sound mad for some reason, this was his long term bully she was talking to. Mark barged in the living room to see what was going on. 

Their heads turned towards him as he’d just interrupted their conversation. Donghyuck stood up and was that a smile he was seeing? For the second time? He told her that he was going to head up with Mark to his room to which she ushered them to. 

“Leave the door open,” she said to Mark while pinching his arm, causing him to yelp at the twinge he felt. 

When she left Donghyuck sat himself down on one of the stools that were lying around, admiring the posters and figurines displayed. He seemed to be in awe of the sight. Mark stared at him in a similar manner, he’d never seen the boy like this; his expression was identical to a puppy’s when they see a new person. 

“I apologised,” he said, answering Mark’s question from earlier. 

“That’s it?” Knowing his mum, she wouldn’t have given in so easily. He surely must’ve said something more than that. Donghyuck just replied with a light “Yup”, making a pop sound with the last letter and leading Mark to become more puzzled. 

And within an hour they had begun working on finding their culprit. They had no match on them now. Their twitch careers would be saved and Donghyuck’s reputation won’t be damaged. Everything was going to go back to the way it was, he hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanted to put this out before school drains me so yeah follow my [twt](https://mobile.twitter.com/9ood9rief) if you want lol thanks for the kudos


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